Secrets
by Scarabbug
Summary: We all have secrets. A few of us even are them, in and of ourselves. We must learn to work around these things. Near future fic. AU to some extent. RobinSecret.


**I was given a challenge a long, long time ago, which I utterly forgot about until quite recently: "Greta (aka Secret) as DCAU Batgirl." It somehow turned into this. **

_

* * *

_

Secrets.

Her name is Greta. At least, that's what I like to call her. Like the actress, because she's always alone.

I'd like to say I know her, but I don't. Not exactly. I've just been hanging around for a while and I've gotten to understand her a little. As much as you can ever understand someone like her, anyway. She's different and gaseous and malleable and… I'm not even sure _she_ really knows what she is.

Anyhow, Greta is alone right now. And from the looks of it, she's kind of scared. I've been watching her for a while, though I'm pretty sure she hasn't noticed me. I hope not. I don't want to seem like some stalker or anything (even if it's virtually in my job description) I just happen to think she's nice. She also happens to be dead.

Dead. I'm serious. At least there doesn't seem to be much else she could be. I performed a few tests considering other possibilities (and there are, actually, a number of them) but they all seemed to come out negative. So at the moment, there's no doubt about it. Greta is a ghost. A real, bonafied, undead ghost.

She's kind of pretty, if you see her in the right light (well, in the right _shadows_, anyway. I've never seen her out during daylight). She was blonde before her hair became transparent, and she had braces on her teeth. I know that because… well, because I recognize her. She might even recognize me if she saw me, because I think I helped her once, a long time ago. That's why I don't want to be seen. I don't want her to remember…

Anyway.

I'm getting ahead of myself. And that time has nothing to do with this. This story is about Greta. _This_ Greta, not the person she was before. Things have changed a lot since then, for both of us.

Anyway, I think the reason Greta is scared right now, is because she's a metahuman (that's someone who looks like a human, but knows how to do things most humans don't. Like speedsters, for example, and Superman), and _somebody_ has found where she lives.

When you're a metahuman in Gotham there are lots of people you don't want to be found by. Cadmus has been trying to get subsidiary warehouses built here for years now. They've never managed to outdo Wayne Tech, but they still got a few labs set up here and there over the last few years. I imagine if you're a girl like Greta, you wouldn't want Cadmus finding you. Then there are the other meta humans –power stealers and mutants and maybe even other ghosts. They can be really frightening and most of them could probably do her real damage, even if she can't be touched. I know she can't be. She just drifts through everything, like smoke and dust.

But by far the worst thing that can find you in Gotham is…

Oh.

There he is.

Yeah. I knew he'd come, eventually.

* * *

She was almost glad when it came and woke her up. 

She had been trying her hardest to stay out of the way. To keep to the darkness where no one was scared of her and only come out when the streets felt silent, but he still found her anyway.

He was dark and deep, like the shadows in her bad dreams (bad shadows, not like the ones she lives in), but at least he didn't try to devour her the way they did, even though he was easily big enough to. He made her feel _small_. Small as patches of dust of the sparkles of moonlight on broken glass, and he _frightened_ her, even though she knew he couldn't touch her. Maybe he had other ways of hurting her, like the shadows seemed to have. He'd emerged without her even knowing he was there.

_'…Are you here to take me away?' _

It seemed like a good question, at the time. If people didn't run away from her, or if they were wearing those funny green suits, they usually tried to catch up with her.

The shadow moved quickly, which… bothered her. Shadows that moved were always bad. Moving shadows meant life, life meant danger, danger meant having to hide again.

It shifted from still to alert so quickly, she couldn't tell where the darkness of the building ended and the darkness of its silhouette began. How strange. She'd thought that she was the only one who could vanish into the darkness like that.

'I have questions,' it said. It _sounded_ like a person, but then, she thought _she_ sounded like a person too, and so did the strange man with the ugly white face she had briefly seen chuckling in an alleyway once (she'd tried to keep well away from him) and the woman with the pale green face and red hair like a blushing flower, and clearly none of _those_ people were humans. A lot of people in Gotham weren't. Maybe he wasn't a person at all. Maybe he just wanted to sound like one. 'What happens next depends on your answers.'

'I… okay.' questions are okay, though she hadn't expected him to say that. The _normal_ shadows didn't ask her questions or even try to speak to her at all. They just came to eat her up every day while she tried to sleep. She hasn't felt them near her for a while. Maybe this new shadow has frightened them away and…

'Would you like to sit down?' she blurted out. She thought that was the polite thing to say, even though she wasn't sure _where_ he'd sit. There wasn't much to sit on in here and the ground was covered in broken glass. He didn't answer the question. Maybe he didn't hear her. She did ask it in a rather quiet voice. It's _hard_ to make herself sound any louder.

'I've been watching you for a while. I'd like to be happy you're not causing trouble. You're no ordinary human being.'

She had actually worked that out for herself, from the moment the first woman screamed at her when she was trying to return her purse. And that police officer, who had seen her briefly in the spotlight of a streetlamp, had looked into her eyes and started screaming, long until after she'd made herself invisible amongst the dust of a nearby alleyway. That had been when she found this building –nice and safe where no people ever seemed to go. She thought that she could be alone here and not have anyone stare or scream at her.

She'd thought wrong.

Yes. She knew she wasn't a normal human being. Human beings had flesh and bone and people didn't curl up crying when they looked into a human's eyes. She wasn't too sure _what_ she was. She wasn't sure if this new shadow _liked_ her. Still, he was better than the ones that tried to eat her, so she tried, again, to tell herself that she wasn't at all afraid of him.

Besides, there was no sense in being rude to strangers. 'Um… No, sir. I don't think I am. Are… are you a normal person?'

Her question seemed to confuse him, a little. It was difficult to tell from where she stood amongst the darkness and for all that she could make him out, his features remained blanketed and untouchable.

'Metahumans don't come into Gotham. It causes trouble.'

Metahuman?

She didn't understand what that word meant, but she knew that Gotham had a lot of trouble. Ever since she came here awful men had been breaking into houses and firing guns at each other. Did that have something to do with her? Did she cause people to be bad? She'd tried hard to stay away from them, but when she did come out she wanted to help. The men with guns and knives couldn't hurt her like they could the normal people but their feelings tasted ugly and cold and pointless, like the feelings of so many she had met back in her old home.

She had just wanted them to go away…

'…Do I have to leave?'

For a while, she thought he wasn't going to answer her again (he really did seem rather rude), but he did, and his voice was much quieter when he did so. 'No, you don't have to leave.'

She relaxed. As much as she _could_ relax anyway, sometimes sleep could turn her into smoke, so she drifted to the floor without a sound. If she turned into too much dust, she might not be able to get back together again.

'But there _are_ two things you have to do for me.'

His voice was an order, and she knew she had to listen very carefully and do exactly as he said. There would be more trouble if she didn't, and she didn't want that. He was close to her now, closer and cold but she wasn't certain when he had moved. In the corners, the shadows and dust quivered, curling in and out as she rubbed her hands together. '…Yes?'

'Behave,' he said. She waited for him to elaborate, but he didn't. He merely continued to gaze at her, eyes very white amongst all that black.

She knew all about behaving and being good. They used to tell her all the time, back in the place where she lived "be good", "be smart", "behave", "don't play up, dear, I wouldn't want you to get in trouble". She always tried to do as they told her even when it hurt to do so.

She knew that weapons and sharp things were bad, and so were guns and people who used them. She knew it was wrong to take things without asking and to cut people and make them bleed. She had seen all these things happening since she had come to Gotham and she knew from the way they felt that they were wrong. She didn't like those kinds of things, so she knew she wasn't like those people.

Maybe if she was always good, the shadows wouldn't be able to eat her. _'I can do that, sir.' _

'That's good. I'm not going to leave you unwatched. Another thing you must do is stay here. Around this area. Do _not_ venture outside or appear on the streets, particularly in daylight.'

She wasn't sure what he meant by that. Did that mean he would stay here, too? She didn't know why she hoped he would. Maybe because she thought he might help to keep the bad shadows away. "Can you help me?" She wanted to ask, but didn't, for fear of what might come of it. The last time anyone had offered to help her, she'd found herself sealed inside of cold dark glass and had been shifted from one cage to another ever since. Until the day the glass shattered and set her free –the night she came to Gotham.

Nobody tried to help her in Gotham; they were always frightened and ran away.

It was almost as if he'd read her mind, because he added 'there's more to fear here than shadows. Don't make yourself anymore of a problem.'

She wouldn't argue with him, even if she wanted to and even if she didn't understand. She'd always known better than to fight with the shadows. _Any_ shadows, alive or not. Her fingers traced the broken glass beneath her –she couldn't actually touch it unless she concentrated hard enough, but she likes the way it felt as it drifted between her fingertips. Cool and sharp edged, almost like sunlight. It made her feel better, while facing something just so dark. She didn't go out in the light these days anyhow, so where he wanted her to stay hardly mattered.

'There's one other thing you have to do for me,' she looked up at him and waited. And then he was closer to her again, towering. 'Tell me exactly who you are.'

She shuffled an uncomfortable chill crawling its way her spine as she thought about the shadows that will could when she was sleeping.

_'…I can't.'_

He didn't even blink at her., but she felt the "why not?" in his gaze and shuffled some more without meaning to. '…_It's a Secret_,' she said, and when she spoke, the shadows shifted around them.

* * *

I got shot the other day. 

Totally wasn't my fault. Well, not really. And it was just a little graze in the arm but it didn't half hurt. I remember that. Pain. It's a familiar one. You get used to it, but as I was saying.

It was after the first time I went to see her. Greta, that is. I think I was wondering how long she'd been there. couldn't have been long but… I hadn't been focussing a whole lot lately, so maybe. I could have missed her, though the odds are Bruce wouldn't ever have. She can't have been there long. She's new. New and scared and alone.

Kid's got my sympathy there.

But anyhow. It happened when I was on my way back. Random mugging. Smashed jeweller's window. You know the usual. Except that there was one more gun than I'd counted. I should've counted better. He always _taught me_ to count but I just kept thinking about having one in my hand and then I thought about Greta and her broken glass floor…

That's a totally unrelated story though. Not important that you know it.

I didn't focus properly while I was getting one of them into a wrist lock and… yeah. You know the rest. It's easy to do. Made me feel like total crap (way to boost confidence in your abilities, Timmy, get yourself _shot_ in the first week back on duty). But it's easy to do.

Except if you're a batman. Or Robin.

Or Robin.

Crap.

That was me off the streets for another week after that. I'm surprised he didn't cut me out completely then. But then I guess he hadn't before so maybe he wasn't about to now. I've come back from too much. He couldn't take it away from me.

I hope he couldn't.

Afterwards Alfred said to me…

He said I started laughing a bit, while I was getting stitches. Told me maybe it's a gun reaction – automatic, related to the stimulus. I'll probably have the same reaction around greasepaint (no more theatre-region patrols for me, then) and store dummies.

Bad joke. Still, but I don't remember laughing. Alfred wouldn't lie, though so it must've happened. It makes me wonder how many other times I've laughed without knowing it. whether I might do more.

I don't want to think about that.

He asked me where I'd gotten it, and I wanted to tell Alfred about Greta right there and then, but… I didn't. I decided to keep her secret, because for some reason and

…I dunno. It's weird. _She's_ weird, but that's okay. I like going to see her.

Maybe I can talk to her, now that Batman knows she's here. It might be a good idea.

Yeah. It might.

* * *

It was actually kind of nice in the tower. More than she had expected it to be, anyway, and even more so when she got rid of all the dust. Light and airy and everything the Batcave wasn't. Almost an acceptable compromise. It would do. 

The clock face shone like a giant window and if she leant close enough to the white glass to see through it, the drop below reminded her of all the times she used to throw herself from the rooftops. She wondered what that would be like in the daylight with all the cars and people to see her.

She supposed she was never going to know now. There'd be no more flying. She could learn to deal with that.

She couldn't deal with him in her _home_, though. Not right now, not after everything.

'You might as well come down from the roof. I know you're there, no point in hiding.'

To his credit, he didn't insult either of them by staying up there any longer, swinging straight down from the beams to the floor. She didn't turn to face him. Just continued setting up a three-way monitor and absently wondering where her little Batgirl doll had vanished to. Tim had bought her it for Christmas once. It was… cute in a woolly, disturbing way. 'I actually _have_ a door, you know. Fairly un-missable, it's a double.'

'…I thought you might want a hand.' No apology, then. She shouldn't have expected one. But then maybe it's not his fault.

It _was_ his fault that he came here, however, when he knew how pissed off she was. When he knew…

Damn it. He shouldn't have come here.

'I have a photographic memory, did you know that?'

She totally disregarding his statement but the old Boy Wonder didn't seem to so much as hesitate. She made him wait before continuing. Of _course_ he knew. He was raised by _Batman_, for god's sakes, he probably read police-reports instead of dirty magazines as a teenager. 'It took me a while to work it out –that it just wasn't ordinary for people to remember all the stuff I do. Hell, I leapt from buildings in a bat suit, after all. What exactly do _I_ know about normal? I read the papers and all of it sticks, _everything_, right down to who wrote the articles.'

He stayed quiet. Batman would've been like that, silent and dry and completely infuriating. She hadn't looked to see if he was in costume but she could already feel that he was. Nightwing was understandably silent; Dick Grayson would've _said_ something by now. Likely something intentionally comforting or otherwise just downright _incorrect_. She's heard all the stories about grief and recovery and looking on the bright side of things. She's heard how important it is for her to cry even if she might never stop and all the little warnings about how hiding in some old clock tower isn't going to make it all go away.

You'd think they'd realise she couldn't exactly go into goddamn _denial_ about it.

Anyway, Barbara was planning to prove Nightwing wrong on that front. It would make a really nice change, she thought, to be _right_ for once where Batman was wrong.

She _wasn't_ wrong to leave the manor. No number of patented bat-glares (from Batman, Nightwing or… hell, even from Tim) was going to convince her otherwise now.

'Barbara, I…'

God, was he actually _hesitating_? That was a first. For Nightwing, anyway.

'Take this one for example: _The Gotham Times_, 25th of October 1999, Page fourteen Article by Terry Park, "Batman Saves Children from Burning Building".

She had been there when that happened. So had he. He'd hidden in the darkness where the police officers lights had been unable to find him, but Batgirl had. _She_ had known he was there, waiting for a need to interferer. The chance hadn't come. The children were saved by creatures of the night and Batman and Batgirl vanished into the shadows. Nightwing left no impression that he had ever even been there. at least not in the eyes of the public, anyway.

There was something so totally ironic about that it almost made Barbara wince.

'Then there was that time with the _Daily Planet._ 29th January 2000, page ten, article by Lois Lane: "The Batman Sighted in Superman's Home City, suggestions of his involvement with the defusing of a tense situation at a local power plant withstanding".'

'Barbara…'

She ignored him. The more pages she quoted the angrier and more frustrated she felt and… _damn it_, she never meant to be this _mad_. She never meant to give him the dignity.

'Or what about the _Gotham Times_ again? February 10th 2001, page forty-three, "The Myth of the BatGIRL?"' (Like it was some kind of damned _miracle_.) 'I was only in there three times. Batman was in the _Times_ alone twenty-three times. You were in the seventeen. All as Robin and almost always with him, never as Nightwing. One of them even had some knowledge about you getting shot while you were with the Titans, god knows how. But they don't know where you went after that so most tabloids pretty much agree that you died and leave it at that. Nobody has guessed Nightwing was Robin. Not even on the internet forums. Yeah. You're doing well, for a one-time Boy Wonder.' She hopes he takes note of the sarcasm.

Yeah. Barbara _knew_ these kinds of things. She could remember every single headline as clear in her brain as if they were this morning's.

There was no expression in Nightwing's eyes. She knew this, even though she wasn't actually looking at him and _hadn't_ looked at him once since she realised he was in there, hanging from the ceiling and thinking she didn't. Or maybe he'd been totally aware that she knew he was there all along. If he had had an expression though, she imagined that it would have been saying "_what exactly is your point_?"

'There are other Robins of course. At least three in the September 28th issue of the _Central City Star_ this year which was odd because I'm pretty sure Robin has never been to Central. They made quite a fuss when he returned to the streets –too many headlines for me to talk about there. Odd considering you people are supposed to be a myth.'

He noticed she discounted herself. She'd hoped he wouldn't. 'You're our people.'

'No. I'm not. Not anymore.' she didn't mean to sound bitter, but… she did. And that bitterness welled up in her throat a little and gathered up behind her eyes. 'I think we're both sure of that, now, aren't we, Dick?'

She'd said that to him once before, in the hospital. The look in his eyes had been frightened, then, but they aren't now. Not behind the mask and shielding.

For a moment there she'd forgotten –she wasn't talking to Dick now Just Nightwing.

'Anyway, back to the newspapers. That one time the Flash appeared in Gotham –July 15th 2006: Small hurricanes cause havoc in Central Gotham City and yeah – I'm pretty sure they were going for the pun there.'

'Babs…'

'Shut up, Dick. Let me just get to page Seventeen in the Gotham Gazette, November 18th 2002.' She plays with the plastic tape on the cardboard box, no longer paying attention to her wiring. Full page spread, but no photo. The Gotham gazette always has a photo, Dick, but this time there was nothing worth showing. _Robin_.'

The last word emerges from, her mouth like a curse. Even the word itself tastes of blood.

They both know about it. Both wish they didn't, because now they can't hide. 'You think he really thought I wouldn't _notice_, Dick? He should never have seen the streets again.'

'It was his _choice_. Why do you think I had a say in it?'

'You've more than I ever did.' The anger showed itself in her tone of voice there, despite all of her attempts to hide it. She changed her angle, focussing too hard on unpacking the next box, removing a bundle of wiring and fibre optic cabling it's going to take her hours to sort through, even though she knows where everything goes. 'He always trusted you –didn't you know that? You were the boy he wanted to be. He _got_ his wish, look where it's gotten him.' She could have said "_look where it's gotten all of us_", but the self pity she's already had is more than enough for her. She'd had enough of accepting callous facts from Doctors and friends and the Gotham Gazette.

Page Seventeen, November 18th 2002: "_Robin Sighted over Robinson Park. Boy Wonder's First Appearance in Months_."

He made her expression one of indignant rage rather than sour disappointment. She was getting good at that. Bruce would've been proud. Maybe. 'You were _there_. You saw him out there, even after everything we saw before. We _let him_ go back on the rooftops. _I_ let him go back on there. And what happened?'

'It's not your fault. You weren't _on_ the street.'

Barbara snorted. 'I'm not on the streets _at all_ anymore. It wasn't _there_ that I was needed.'

'I know.' There was understanding in his voice, but no compassion, none that she could hear. It made her feel tired enough to lean back and rub her temples with two fingers.

'Just go _home_, Dick. You need to get back to Blüdhaven before some maniac blows it the hell up as they're probably plotting to do at this moment, and I need to finish here.'

'You don't need a hand?'

'Have I ever?' she kept up the glare as a warning not to answer that question even though he probably could, with the same cold, infuriating logic as his mentor.

She would always be Batgirl. And Dick would always be Nightwing.

She looked at him. And yeah –the mask was on, alright. There was no Dick Grayson there –it was all Nightwing and worse. Like turning into the person he so badly didn't _want_ to be. The dry, cold tone makes her sick to her stomach.

Dick paused in the window (she knew it was the window – no way would he sue the door like other, ordinary people). 'You want to be there for him, right? So be there for him now.'

'A little _difficult_, don't you think?' she didn't mean it to come out sounding quite so bitter but it was too late to take it back now.

Dick stepped back, away from the window and towards her. And when she gave him a momentary glance, the lenses of his mask were down and she could see deep blue behind them.

She didn't protest when he reached out to take hold of her, curling her up inside of his arms the way he had done once as Robin, but she doesn't attempt to raise her arms and hold him back. It takes him a few seconds to take the hint, and when he does he pulls back slowly and reluctantly.

Wheelchairs really weren't designed to make the user look imposing, but Barbara managed it anyway.

TBC.

* * *

**Reviews and concrit are appreciated. **

**In case you don't know (but probably do) bits:**

**-Central City Star is a reference to Star City, another comics continuity location that I believe may be invovled with the Flash but don't quote me on that. **

**-Terry Park - a reference to Linda Park, Wally West's canon wife. **

**-Yeah, I know. Barbara's not in the chair in cartoon continuity. This'll be worked out, though.**


End file.
